Peter Angelos Doesn't Hate the Nats

(By Joel Richardson - TWP)

The Orioles are in first place but are drawing flies. Like, not even healthy flies: just those decrepit flies that can no longer fly but can't stop breathing so they just walk around sadly and buzz a little bit until you hit them with your sneaker.

The Nationals have a sparkling new ballpark on the banks of the lovely Anacostia but are drawing, I don't know, lice or something. Twenty-two thousand lice, which is fine for an early-April game against a low profile team in Cincinnati, and perhaps is even fine on the first night D.C. United, the Wizards and the Nats ever played simultaneous home games, but isn't necessarily inspiring. The two teams are 21st and 29th in the league in attendance, behind great-weather towns like Milwaukee Detroit and Kansas City.

Anyhow, yesterday might have been a day for Peter Angelos to gloat a bit, to say "I told you this would never work," to look forward to the eventual demise of one baseball franchise and the reuniting of Maryland's divided baseball house. Instead, he tried to be nice. From the Baltimore Sun:

Angelos had once argued the region couldn't support two franchises.

"Originally, I said [Washington and Baltimore] were very close to each other," Angelos said. "But nonetheless, it is the nation's capital, and the team is there, and it ought to be supported, and hopefully, both franchises will provide successful baseball."

In other examples of marginally enthusiastic well-wishes, Angelos said the Orioles "definitely want [the Nats" to succeed," and that Nats Park "is going to be very popular," and that his fans were free to visit with the enemy because "there's no law against visiting the other franchise." As for the Orioles dwindling attendance, "We would have had very substantial crowds, the way we've been playing, had it not been for the weather," Angelos said, which is undoubtedly correct as long as you're willing to define 14,000 people as a "very substantial crowd."

Of course Angelos is going to talk up the Nats now. He settled that fight when he got the MASN gift. Now it's in his financial best interest for the Nationals to be successful - or at least draw a television audience.